Saturday, 19 November 2016

Mr. Idowu Osuolale
Obasa is the Founder & Chief Executive
Officer of WinnersGolden Chance Ltd, the promoters of the
famous Golden Chance Lotto. Obasa, a former Chairman of Onigbongbo
Local Council Development Area (LCDA) of Lagos State (South West Nigeria) is
also the Chairman, Bradford Group of
Companies. On Monday, October 24th, 2016, his Golden Chance Lotto Agency rewarded her
best 5 Agents with a trip to Dubai,
the capital city of the United Arab Emirate as well as giving out of monetary
gifts to some hardworking agents from across the 36 states of Nigeria. It was a
two hours event that took place in the early hours of the day as lucky winners
were instantly ferried out of Nigeria via Qatar
Airways at noon. The very amiable business guru in this rare encounter with
your Africa’s Number 1 Celebrity Encounter blog, Asabeafrika told us what makes him thick as a leader and why continuous
learning has become his best pastime with his fourth University Degree set for
next Month (December) at a highbrow University in Nigeria. It was an
interesting encounter which revealed the mind power of one of Nigeria’s
innovative accountants. Obasa started
his career at KPMG as a Business Manager and later worked as Chief Accountant
at ICNL Communications Ltd, the promoters of the defunct The News Magazine and PM
News. He later went into politics and became Chairman of Onigbongbo LCDA before he retired into
Lotto and other businesses. Enjoy the encounter with him.

Face-to-Face with Lotto Business Guru, Idowu Obasa

Golden Chance Lotto has just rewarded
5 of her best agents on a week trip to Dubai, how did you come by this gesture?

Idowu Obasa with top management staff of Golden Chance Lotto

Well, it is
good to see people being rewarded for hard work, and you could see that this
people have worked very hard to be able to achieve what they have achieved.
First, like the fact that everybody does appreciate that those who have been
chosen are deserving of the choice being made because everything is fair and
open. And they are inspired to try and work harder so that those who are coming
after can also achieve this in the future. And those who are winning today do
not want also, to be overtaken. It is ordinarily good for the company and it is
also good, that people realize that the company will not forget to reward her
customers by making them to take home everything.It is a part of our general reward system strategy for agents who
have proved their mettle in Golden Chance. We are rewarding them because they
are the best agents. Some have gone on this trip in the past, some are going
today and if any of our agents across Nigeria decides to work hard and earn
more sales for Golden Chance, they could be among the next best 5 in year
2017. I think we are building an institution which for me is the most essential
thing in business.

Idowu Obasa, a very cheerful boss among his team

Golden Chance is reputed to be the
only company that pays customers promptly, how did you achieves such feat in
few years of operation compared to many other old lotto companies?

Idowu Obasa to Asabeafrika...'I will keep graduating till my last day on earth'

We are not
the only company that pays promptly; maybe we are one of the few that pays
promptly. Yes, it won’t be fair to say we are the only ones but we are one of
the few that pays promptly. Truly, there are lots of mushrooms, pretenders who
do not pay promptly but I think there are few ones that pay promptly and we
find ourselves to be among. Our policy is based on trust and like I said when I
was giving out the rewards, for you to know how sincere we are, we try to own
most of our real estate’s wherever you see us operate, it is a sign of
commitment, a sign of consistency and it clearly shows our sense of
responsibility. It simply tells our customers one thing, that ‘these people will never run away with our
money’. We are faithful to our course, we believe if you play and you win, you
must earn your money within an hour or at worst, twenty four hours, no coming
back or tossing around. And that is one of the reasons Golden Chance is doing
well in this industry. We have a strong
policy of paying instant winnings.

It appears that many people are
winning millions of Naira through lotto like the two Ibadan, Oyo state based
Civil Servants you mentioned, how do you find it easy to pay them promptly?

It is all
about commitment and determination to build a good pedigree. That is the rule
in Golden
Chance and all our Principal Agents and sub agents keyed into the
dream. If you play a game and win, you should be able to earn your winnings within
an hour of earnings. In most cases, that allows people to be able to stalk new
earnings which are like a form of re-investment for the business. A man who
wins a million naira is likely to stalk 20 or 30% of that same money back into
the system to earn more winnings. So, if you pay him or her on time, there is
probability that you are helping yourself with a win-win scenario. One, you
enable the winner to earn his money fast and make decision on what to do with
the money. Two, his decision will almost favor you as he or she will likely
stalk to win more. So, it is a win-win scenario. Like our Ibadan-Oyo center
declared, two civil servants won a jackpot of Fifteen Million Naira,
one got eight million and the other got seven million Naira and
they wanted to come down for this event but I declined because they are still
in service. If they come here and share their story, their establishment may
sack them. I mean, in a time like this, someone won N8million and the other won
N7 million and you now announced them to the world. It could arouse jealousy
and that is why I decided to protect their identity. Yes, our strength lies in
instant payment of winnings without delay.

Idowu Obasa with one of his boys at ICNL now City People Magazine Publisher, Dr. Seye Kehinde

Idowu Obasa arrives an event with Business friend

Idowu Obasa & Associate at a social outing

You are known to be a veteran
politician, what is the difference between running politics and running a lotto
business?

I think I am
a business man who found himself in politics, and that is just it. I am a
business man who found himself in politics. It is as simple as that.

You also said you are still in school
at this age, why are you still bordering your head with books?

I said that
when I was giving kudos to one of the 5 best agents travelling to Dubai, Baba
Nana. This man does not have a Ph-D and he runs his business pretty
well. I think that is genius and with all my qualifications, I can say i respect
his organizational ability in this business. I have secured several degrees and
up to this age I am still reading. By this December, I will be graduating with
my fourth degree and I am going to keep graduating till I die. I will keep
graduating till I die because there is actually no time in life that you must
stop learning. The moment you stop learning, then, you start dying. The
philosopher, Zig Ziglarsaid ‘Since
your thinking has a direct bearing on your performance, your thinking must be
based on sound input’. Sound input of mind, sound input of knowledge and managerial
know-how. And if thinking is viewed as a skill, then it can be improved by
practice. So, for you to improve your thinking, for you to improve your skills,
you must keep learning. Learning is an ongoing process and not until you die,
you can’t stop learning. You see, until you die there is always a line for
improvement, there is no doubt about that. For me, I will keep graduating till I die. I
am on my fourth degree program at the moment.

Is that your hobby?

I think it
is a necessary hobby. For me, education is the best leisure pursuit in life.
Just keep learning and you will keep earning.

The Lotto Business Guru, Idowu Obasa with his MD, Mr. Charles Arthur

What is your business philosophy?

I have a
philosophy that anything I do in life, failure is always an option. Definitely,
I must have taken a lot of risks in my life, even our living on earth is a risk
but how do you hedge the risk option? Simple, my philosophy is that number one,
anything I do I always know failure is an option; that you can fail. So, you
have to plan not to fail. Due to this reality or reason,I ask myself ‘are you afraid offailure?’
and the answer I get from myself is ‘No’
because it is human beings that fail and it is human beings that succeed, so I
hold those two things to be true.Failure is always an option in what you do. And for almost everybody who
succeed, it is because they were not afraid of failure, imagine, someone
dropped out of school and went to start Microsoft and became one of the most
successful men in the history of humanity, that means if he didn’t take the
risk of dropping out of school to start Microsoft, he will not become Bill
Gate of today. If he is still procrastinating, he will still be
thinking about it till today. So, my business philosophy is that, everything we
do on a daily basis contains element of risk, you will now try to measure which
one is being the riskiest that I have made but I go by the philosophy that everything
you do, there is possibility of failure. So, you must consider it and plan
against it so that at the end of the day, you might now be lucky to succeed.

Idowu Obasa blessed his Best Lagos Agent, Oluwafemi James Adejuwon aka SCOOBA who was equally on the trip to Dubai

Idowu Obasa blesses one of his top agents, Baba Nana from Ibadan who was also on the trip to Dubai